Tournaments to watch and look forward to

10/5/2007 – Suffering from withdrawal after three weeks of the world championship in Mexico? There are a number of events coming up which you can mark up in your event calendar. The European Club Cup is under way, a rapid match between Leko and Ivanchuk starts on October 25, then there is the World Youth Championship, the World Chess Cup and the Corus Chess Tournament. Full information and links.

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We already reported
on the start of this giant event: the 23rd European Club Cup for Men and the 12th
European Club Cup for Women are taking place from October 2nd to 10th in Kemer,
Antalya, Turkey. There are 56 teams participating in the men's section and 18
teams in the women's.

Amongst the players (some of whom are arriving late) we have spotted, in no
particular order, Anand, Ivanchuk, Svidler, Carlsen, Karjakin, Kamsky, Radjabov,
Shirov, Girschuk, Kasimdzhanov, Bologan, Short, Atalik, Adams, Ponomariov, Mamedyarov,
Morozevich, van Wely, Sasikiran; and in the women's section Humpy, Cramling,
Zhu Chen, Stefanova, Skripchenko, Chiburdanidze, Lahno, Hou Yifan; and many
others. It is really a giant event with a collection of stars you only otherwise
see at Olympiads.

Exhibition Rapid Match Peter Leko vs Vassily Ivanchuk

October 2007

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This match over twelve games will take place from October 25 - 28, in Mukachevo,
a small town located in the western Ukraine. It pits the top players of the two
neighbouring countries Hungary and Ukraine and was originated by the initiative
of Josef Resch of Universal
Event Promotion, which is in the business of staging chess events world-wide.
Resch celebrated his 50th birthday this year – and on the occasion of this
anniversary the idea of an extraordinary chess event was implemented.

Chess organiser and promoter Josef Resh

The schedule of the competition in Mukachevo: four rapid games will be played
every day (October 26, 27 and 28). The time control for each game is ten minutes
plus ten seconds per move.

The St. Ciryl and Method statue in Mukachevo

Link

The World Youth Chess Championship 2007 will take place in Kemer-Antalya, Turkey,
between November the 17th, 2007 (arrival) and November the 29th, 2007 (departure).
There are seperate groups for under 8, under 10, under 12, under 14, under 16
and under 18 years old, for girls and for boys. The organisers, the Turkish Chess
Federation, is planning "one of the most professional competitions in the
history of chess for the world youth championships" and is aiming for record
participation. It is expected that there will be more than 2.000 players and 1,500
accompanying persons (the TCF is prepared to accommodate over 4,500 participants).
According to FIDE rules, all participants (including players, parents, coaches,
journalists, delegations) must stay in official hotels.

Links

The World Chess Cup will be staged from November 22 to December 18th in Khanty-Mansiysk
in the autonomous region of Yugra, Russia. 128 chess players will participate
in this knock-out tournament, consisting of seven rounds of matches, with two
game each: in the first round there are 128 players, in the second 64, etc.
In the seventh round there are two players, and they will play a final match
over four games.

The list of players who have qualified for the World Cup 2007 include those
of the World Championship Tournament 2007: Anand, Morozevich, Leko, Aronian,
Svidler, Gelfand, Grischuk and Kramnik. The Women's World Champion 2006, Xu
Yuhua (CHN) and the Junior World Champion 2006, Z. Andriasian (ARM) will also
participate. After that come 21 players from the FIDE Rating List, 45 players
from the European Championships 2006 and 2007, 9 players from the Zonals and
Continetal of Americas, 19 players from the Zonals and Continental of Asia/Oceania,
six players from the Continent of Africa, five nominees of the FIDE President
and four nominees of the local Organising Committee.

The total prize fund of the event is US $1.6 million. FIDE will wire a cash
advance of US $1,500 to each player one month before the start of the event
to cover their hotel bills. Originally the winner of the World Chess Cup was
going to be the challenger of the current world champion in 2008. However, by
special decree FIDE has decided that the former FIDE world champion Veselin
Topalov will play an eight-game "Challenger's Match" against the winner
of the World Chess Cup. In the meantime the current world champion, Viswanathan
Anand, will play a match against former world champion Vladimir Kramnik in 2008,
and the winners of both these matches will play a world championship match in
2009. Details of these regulations can be found here.

The town of Khanti-Masnsiysk is located about 1400 miles (2250 km) east of
Moscow, just north of Kazakhstan. The pronounciation of the name is roughly
"kanty-mansisk", with the first part rhyming with "hunty",
the second with "fun-sick". If you are up to it, pronounce the initial
"k" like the guttural "ch" in the German "Dach"
or the Spanish "rojo". The Russian original is Ха́нты-Манси́йск.

Today the town of Khanty-Mansiysk is the center of business life in the region,
with all amenities, hotels, sports objects, motorways, a medical center, a center
of Arts for gifted children, a skiing center, and many other things. Modern
communication facilities are available to connect with foreign and CIS countries.
The population is 55,700. More information and a lot of pictures are available
at this Khanty-Mansiysk
web site.

Links

The Corus Chess Tournament 2008 will be held from 11-27 January 2008 in Wijk
aan Zee, Netherlands. The tournament venue is the De Moriaan Community Centre
(Dorpsduinen 4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee) and the nearby bar de Zon. The participants
have just been announced and it is billed as one of the world's strongest chess
tournaments (category 20).

Participants of GM Group A

No.

Player

nat.

born

rating

rank

1

GM Viswanathan Anand

IND

1969

2801

1

2

GM Vassily Ivanchuk

UKR

1969

2787

2

3

GM Vladimir Kramnik

RUS

1975

2785

3

4

GM Veselin Topalov

BUL

1975

2769

4

5

GM Peter Leko

HUN

1979

2755

5

6

GM Shakhryar Mamedyarov

AZE

1985

2752

7

7

GM Teymour Radjabov

AZE

1987

2742

8

8

GM Levon Aronian

ARM

1982

2741

9

9

GM Boris Gelfand

ISR

1968

2736

11

10

GM Michael Adams

ENG

1971

2729

13

11

GM Magnus Carlsen

NOR

1990

2714

17

12

GM Judit Polgar

HUN

1976

2708

20

13

GM Pavel Eljanov

UKR

1983

2681

30

14

GM Loek van Wely

NED

1972

2680

32

The Corus Chess Tournament has three main tournaments, all round robins. All
three Grandmaster groups have 14 players and start on January 12th. All rounds
begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 27th, which begins
at 12.30 hours (Grandmaster group C starts at 11.30 hours in the last round).
There are rest days: on January 16th, 21st, and 24th.

There are also four amateur events during the Corus Chess Tournament, open
to all players: Weekend-three-round events (11-13 January), Weekday-three-round-events
(14-16 January), Nine-round events (18-27 January) and the Rapid Tournament
(19-20 January).

See also

11/28/2018 – The moment we've all been waiting for! Live games (for Premium members) from the 2018 World Championship match in London. Every two games will be followed by a rest day until Game 12 (if necessary) on November 26th which will be preceded by an additional rest day. All rounds start at 15:00 UT (London time) / 16:00 CEST / 10:00 EST. If needed there would be a rapid tiebreak match on Wednesday, November 28th. | Photos: Patricia Claros

See also

8/27/2018 – Live games and commentary from Saint Louis! Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian tied for first place, while Caruana also tied for fourth place in the Grand Chess Tour standings with Wesley So, forcing a playoff match to be held on Tuesday. | Graphic: Saint Louis Chess Club

Video

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.

Enjoy the best moments of recent top tournaments (World Cup, Isle of Man Open) with analysis of top players. In addition you'll get lots of training material. For example 10 new suggestions for your opening repertoire.